Cardiff City ace in “sheep shagging” contract

Would ewe believe it!

What could induce a professional footballer to leave Manchester City for Division Two side Cardiff City?

Manchester City may have been relegated last season from the English Premiership to Division One, but they've still got the tallest floodlights of any football club in England - something not to be sniffed at.

Maybe it was the lure of the open fields of Wales that finally tempted defender Spencer Prior to make the £700,000 move, or perhaps it was the very special personal terms he was able to negotiate. And we're not talking about his salary here.

According to a piece on the Cardiff City Web site reporting on him officially joining the side yesterday a "number of additions" were tagged onto Spencer's contract.

It reports: "Some of the major points within the contract is he must have a physical liaison with a sheep; also he will eat sheep's testicles".

Hang about. We know the contract was approved by the Professional Footballers Association, but what will the RSPCA have to say about the deal? There's such a thing as taking local customs too far.

OK - so how did this piece of online lunacy manage to stray onto Cardiff City's site?

Well it seems the people who run the site buggered up the content without any help from hackers.

When we contacted the club they told us that there were "odd things in the contract" connected to Spencer's dietary requirements. The woman at the club we spoke to was shocked when we told her what was actually on the site and readily admitted it "might be misconstrued". Too right. ®

Update

Cardiff City's promotional manager Julian Jenkins has being on the phone to tell us that the all the sheep related nonsense really is in Spencer's contract - and that this will become the standard deal for Cardiff players to sign up to.

The club's supporters are taunted by rivals as sheep shaggers, so owner Sam Hammam decided to add some "extra-contractual arrangements"

"It's all tongue in cheek stuff," said Julian, "We're not actually promoting bestiality. Spencer could fulfil his contract simply by patting a sheep on its back."